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EEOC charges Phoenix school district with age bias in retirement pay

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The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed an age discrimination lawsuit against a Phoenix school district, charging it with unlawfully using an early retirement incentive plan that provides greater economic benefits to younger retirees based on their age.

The EEOC on Wednesday said Murphy School District No. 21’s plan was adopted in the 1980s. The complaint says a 60-year-old employee, for instance, with five to nine years of service will receive salary plus 15%, while a 64-year-old with the same years of service receives salary plus 3% under the incentive plan. It says the plan cuts off any early incentive benefit to those age 62, 63, 65 and above, depending on the years of service.

The complaint says the plan was implemented to create an incentive for employees to retire at a younger age in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.

The EEOC is seeking monetary relief for all retirees who retired between 2008 and the present and were age 62, 63 65 or older when they retired. This includes the amount of money a retiree would have received except for the discrimination, plus prejudgment interest and liquidated damages.

The agency also said it is seeking an injunction prohibiting future discrimination.

“Early retirement incentive plans like this which are facially age-discriminatory need to be changed,” said EEOC regional attorney Mary Jo O’Neill in a statement. “People in their 60s should not be penalized merely because they want to continue working.”

A district spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.

In 2012, the EEOC reached a $148,092 settlement with Tempe, Ariz., Elementary School District No. 3, which it had charged with using an early retirement incentive plan and a normal retirement plan that granted greater economic benefits to younger employees based solely on their age, in violation of the ADEA.